with their leaders. Gradually we learned all the details which showed to us the class forces represented by each side. Because this fight forecast so much of what occurred in the following months, I will give some details of what we learned about it and about the organizations involved.
The Canton Mechanics Union is one of the older labor organizations in China. It claims a history since 1905 when it was organized along the lines of the old Chinese Guilds, comprising workers and employers alike. In the old days it conducted struggles only against the British in Hongkong. In 1922–23, at the time when the trade union movement proper was organizing itself in the All-China Labor Federation, this Canton Mechanics Union partially reformed itself into a trade union in a modern sense. It retained, however, much of the old guild character, including the complete absence of rank and file control. Its officers are self-perpetuating. It has continued to maintain close relations with the employers. In all of the internal struggles within the Kuomintang it has been openly or secretly aligned with the right wing. At the time when Chen Chiung Ming split with Sun Yat Sen and drove him out of Canton, this Union maintained an attitude of benevolent neutrality in the open while actually assisting the counter-revolution. During the rising of the so-called "paper tigers" or merchants' volunteers in 1925 this union played a very ambiguous role. Since the rise of Chiang Kai Shek as the leader of the right wing in the Kuomintang (the Chung Shen Cruiser incident of March 20th, 1926) the Mechanics Union has been closely connected with Chiang Kai Shek and with his chief lieutenant in Canton, General Li Chi-sen.
For some months before the fight, the provincial government, acting in the name of Chiang Kai Shek, had been bringing pressure to bear upon the trade unions in the All-China Labor Federation. Particularly it had been moving toward the disarmament and dispersement of the armed labor pickets. But while they were disarming the bona fide trade unionists, they were arming the right wingers of the Canton Mechanics Union and inciting them to disruptive activities against the real trade unions. Toward
11
